SXSW: On the Radar

A lot of folks want to know what the next phase of the Internet will be. Some people think it will be the so-called “semantic Web,” a way in which the computers get even more intelligent and understand the nuances of human language.

Semantic Web doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, though, and there is an obvious candidate waiting in the wings.

Radar is still in stealth mode, technically, although there are signs that it’s coming out of it. For one thing, it has a PR firm, and Chris Jones, director of products and operations, spent about an hour with me.

Jones said to think of how a Google search can return hundreds of thousands of documents, and while many times the target is on the first page, many times it also completely misses the mark.

“The tools right now out there are potentially reaching a point of diminishing returns,” Jones said. “There’s so much information out there, and great information, but how do you sift through it, and who do you ask?”

“We’re looking at how we can help consumers work with the vast amounts of information in their lives. How can we provide better precision in their searching? How can they get an idea of the big picture of this information?”

The answer may lie in part on the social networks that are part of, um, Web 2.0.

“We’re looking at tools that they can filter and work with their peer groups,” Jones said. “We’re looking at the semantic web as the next piece of social software.”

The company was founded by Nova Spivack, who is CEO, and who happens to be the grandson of the famed business guru, the late Peter Drucker. It raised $800,000 in angel funding led by Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital in September 2005, and it raised $4 million in a Series A round of venture capital, led by Vulcan and Leapfrog Ventures.

Jones said the company hopes to emerge from stealth mode with a beta release this summer, and hopes to have the software out by the end of the year. It will be a free service.